Working for change through local organizing

By Lisa Jacob
North Texas Organizer, Christians Against Christian Nationalism

As BJC is in our 88th year, I’ve had the honor of incorporating local organizing as part of our legacy. We have done substantial work in learning what organizing is and how to move forward together, and our learning bears witness to the transformation this work can bring. I want to share some of what we’ve been discovering on this journey.

First, it’s important to note that local organizing is just one of three key mediums of change that we use at BJC to dismantle Christian nationalism. The other two are awareness and advocacy. I find that it’s helpful to understand what awareness and advocacy are, which allows us to see the distinctives of local organizing.

Awareness, Advocacy and Local Organizing
We use awareness because we believe that change happens in the hearts and minds of individuals, activating and equipping them to clearly see and discern the impact of certain issues on the community. From its formation, a core aspect of the Christians Against Christian Nationalism campaign is its challenge for Christians to examine what it means to be Christian in the U.S. — ideologically, interpersonally and within the public square. At BJC, we raise awareness by going to churches and other locations to talk about Christian nationalism. We also raise awareness by creating resources for folks to talk about Christian nationalism with others. We aren’t responsible for what people do with this information, but we can reduce the barriers that people have towards taking action. We can equip them to take a next step, and that journey begins with awareness. Change happens through awareness.

Change also happens through advocacy. Advocacy is action with and within structures of power. We believe that change can happen through advocacy within federal and state policy through accountability and heightened consciousness regarding realities that impact the masses. On its website, the NAACP notes that advocacy is a “path to justice” which requires challenging “federal, state, and local laws, statutes, and policies to ensure equal protection.” Advocacy goes beyond work between my community and me. Advocacy is in phone banking. It’s in signing that petition. Advocacy connects us to people and movements we may not know, but we take part in advocacy in hopes to see broad scale change.

BJC was founded on this very principle of advocacy by our member bodies who have been doing this work since their beginnings, and we currently see this within BJC in different ways. We see advocacy in our testimonies before Congress. We see advocacy in the briefs we file at the Supreme Court. We see advocacy in our in-depth joint report on Christian nationalism and January 6. We also see advocacy in our nationwide work to stop the misguided use of “chaplains” in public schools. Change happens through advocacy.

Change also happens through local organizing. In Faith-Rooted Organizing: Mobilizing the Church in Service to the World, the Rev. Dr. Alexia Salvatierra and the Rev. Dr. Peter Heltzel define “community organizing” as the effort of “[bringing] a community together to fight for its rights and improve its situation.” Advocacy can be part of an organizing movement, but the distinctive of local organizing is that its approach is determined and formed by the community members themselves. We engage in local organizing, believing that change happens through building communal power in the context of relationships so as to address, change and/or sustain policies and practices that impact us. There are a few key words worth highlighting.

Relationship
Local organizing happens in the context of relationship. In organizing, the primary vehicle of change is through relationships with others. Local organizing is a slow and tedious process. Oftentimes, we don’t see any substantial wins early on. But to organize communities, relationships to each other are what keep people engaged in the mission, and these relationships sustain us during the lulls and losses. In the book Practical Radicals: Seven Strategies to Change the World, authors Deepak Bhargava and Dr. Stephanie Luce share a thoughtful reflection on relationships within organizing from Make the Road New York, a grassroots community organization with 25,000 members. The group’s internal documents share about relationships this way:

Creating community means building relationships that go beyond any one narrow issue or campaign, and caring about each person as a vital part of the fabric of our movement. It means creating spaces that are open to all types of activity, where people can teach a music lesson, celebrate the arrival of a new baby, or dress up for Halloween. It means making people laugh, and celebrating our collective achievements on our walls and in our meetings. … This model has the power to create resilient relationships that go beyond narrow self-interest. Outside, in the world, we spend our lives fighting oppression and confronting its daily ugliness. Inside, we gather the strength to continue.

Relationships are not a means to an end, but rather the end in and of itself. And those relationships are the bedrock of organizing. It is in relationship that we gather our strength. It is in relationship that we harness our communal creativity. It is in relationship that we build power, which points us to another set of key words.

Building communal power
In building communal power, we acknowledge the power each of us holds, and together, we steward it towards a shared vision and/or goal. For example, if Sally Joe was concerned with the crime that’s happening on her street, she may want to get more streetlamps to try to make her street safer at night. Sally Joe may contact her city government or she may need to contact her homeowner’s association. But one single person — Sally Joe — can only go so far. This speaks to the need to build communal power. We all have skills, gifts and connections we bring to the table, and we can go much further together.

As an organizer, I would ask Sally Joe about who else is concerned with the crime on her street at night and willing to act. Sally Joe may have already talked to five or six other neighbors, and they’re all ready to do something. But most times, I’ve found that the Sally Joes of the world haven’t had many of these conversations. Once Sally Joe identifies and rallies neighbors who are willing to act, they can collectively go together to talk to their government official or their HOA. In this example, when Sally Joe rallies others, she has built communal power that constructively confronts their concerns together. In this story, I want to note that I — the organizer — am not central to the work. In fact, in this type of situation, the organizer is on the periphery and empowers people to be aware of their local context and discern next steps. It’s the actual neighbors together that are central to changing the neighborhood. And that leads us to some of our other key words.

Impact us
Local organizing is the belief that change happens through building communal power in the context of relationships so as to address, change and/or sustain policies and practices that impact us personally.

Local organizing is not theoretical and external to any given context. It’s rooted in a geography. Local organizing addresses what’s happening to us in our community. For example, North Texans in Tarrant County organized to push for an end to the county’s contract with a private jail that was found to have conditions well below established standards of care. Many groups came together to be part of the fight to end this inhumane treatment of their neighbors, including Unite Ft. Worth, the NAACP and several churches, including Broadway Baptist Church — which is a church that supports BJC. Because of their organizing efforts, Tarrant County officials decided to end this contract — a huge win for the community. Local organizing addresses realities that impact us.

As we address these realities, we also work toward justice by attending to more immediate circumstances, done primarily through another avenue.

Community development
The three areas we work to see change in at BJC are awareness, advocacy and local organizing. But community development work drives change as well. Community development does not change systems or institutional practices, but it does change the circumstances of those who have to live within these broken systems.

Many churches and faith communities dive into the work of justice at the community development level. Community development can be the food drive and rental assistance programs. It’s in serving at the migrant shelters and teaching the ESL classes. Without community development, marginalized communities will not have the immediate access to resources that are needed to thrive. But this work of justice must be hand-in-hand with local organizing. If we never address the systems that keep people from thriving, then we create an unhealthy dependence. If community development is giving a person fish and teaching a person to fish (sometimes it’s one, sometimes it’s both), then local organizing is asking the question, “Why doesn’t that person have access to fish, and why do they not know how to fish in the first place?” Local organizing is addressing those barriers.

What I love about BJC is our willingness to learn — to learn from our past, to learn from our partners, to learn from our context and present moment. As we head toward our ninth decade, engaging in local organizing is one way we have been faithful to the journey of learning. As I mentioned at the beginning, we have done substantial work in learning what organizing is and how to move forward together. Yet, we have much more learning to do. We invite you on this journey with us — it starts with this article and extends beyond these pages. It moves each of us to listen to and learn from our local communities and those who have been faithful to organizing work for generations, no matter the topic they are organizing around. It moves us to be part of change in sometimes new and unfamiliar ways. It moves us to extend beyond what might be our comfort zone and engage with our neighbors who bring new issues to our attention. And, just as every move and transition requires adaptability, we know the only way we can eradicate Christian nationalism and continue the fight for faith freedom for all is by engaging in new strategies and learning from others. This work is worth it, and we hope you’ll join us.

We know many of you already do this important work, and we are grateful to be co-laborers. But for those of you who are new to this work, local organizing gives us the opportunity to be part of change in our own community. Plus, you can connect with others by joining our new Christians Against Christian Nationalism group on Facebook. You also can start a local coalition to fight Christian nationalism or participate in other existing coalition work.

If you’re looking to get involved in North Texas, contact Lisa Jacob at [email protected].

Looking to raise awareness? Consider holding a community meeting about Christian nationalism. Click here for a toolkit to help you get started.

Lisa Jacob is the North Texas Organizer for BJC’s Christians Against Christian Nationalism campaign. 

This article first appeared in the summer 2024 edition of Report from the Capital.  You can download it as a PDF or read a digital flip-through edition.